it was the super cropping that has caused your issue you are describing.

Each time you crop you ad 10-14 days to the veg cycle just to get back to the point in the growth where you started the crop.

In other words if you cropped say at week 2 for example then week 3 is wasted time as the plant need to recover and spend time and energy on recovery rather then new aged growth and moving forward. so you can't really count the recovery time as part if the true veg cycle time.

And super cropping you cropped more then once most time or you cut it way to close. You have an older root system and a younger structure system so yes give it plenty of drainage and room for the roots to grow out even more. That is one of the major setbacks in doing cropping.